A friend suggested I write about what she calls "bemused observations." That sounded pretty good and is thus my intention, at least until the hysterical ranting begins.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Tardy Note

To Whom it may concern at Clague:

Please excuse Emily's tardiness. She is still not feeling 100% and had difficulty getting motivated this morning.

Thank you,Lisa Olson

What it should have said:

Dear office person at Clague whom I suspect never reads these notes anyway, so I might as well just tell the truth:

Please excuse Emily's tardiness this morning. She's only about 10 minutes late, and to be honest, we should be happy that's all it is. First thing, right off the bat this morning, she didn't want to get up and threatened to yell at her mother. I know. Yelling! At her mother. And we all know her mother has a veeeeery tricky time dealing with yellers. Yelling is basically a deal breaker for her in any other relationship, except what is she to do when it's her daughter, pray tell? Although, to be fair, her mother also appreciates the delicious irony of the sitation and willingly subscribes to the theory that the best teacher, the one she really needs, is always the person standing right there in front of her. The person yelling, in this case.

Anyhoo... Once Emily finally did roll out of bed, while her mother was sitting happily in the living room with a cup of coffee, watching the sunrise in peace, she took a quick survey of her room and decided she had absolutely nothing to wear. Then, a miracle happened. Emily spent the next 20 minutes gathering up all of the dirty clothes from her floor, stuffed them into her laundry hamper and hauled the whole thing down to the laundry room. Upon returning to her much less chaotic room, she was then able to assemble the most darling ensemble which includes her black Lucy Buddha shirt, black leggings, a denim mini skirt and black suede boots. Oh, and one of those very long skinny striped scarves tossed over the whole thing. Anyone looking at her today would agree the effort was well worth it...

Then Emily came downstairs and made herself a bowl of cereal and to be a pet, she also warmed up the spa herbal neck wrap thingy in the microwave. Thereupon she joined her mother in the living room, presented her with the neck wrap and they finished watching the sunrise together while Emily ate her cereal. All of this, lovely as it sounds, takes time my friend. Therefore Miss Emily has arrived at school today, tardy, by about 10 minutes, as I believe I might have mentioned earlier.

I have no idea if you'd agree the time was well spent, but that really isn't your decision, is it? In any case, Emily's mother really doesn't give a rodent's fanny if you excuse her or not, but she appreciates the enormous task you have before you and acknowledges the disruption Emily is likely to cause as she enters her first hour class a few minutes late. Especially when the other girls get a load of her totally excellent outfit.